The Dead Time

We are very comfortable these days with the 12-month Gregorian calendar that keeps us synchronized with the weather, but there was a time when the calendar of the Roman Empire only covered 10 months. Those sybaritic Romans began their year in March––known as Martius––and the two winter months before then were known as "dead time." These months were unnamed. There were probably a lot of good reasons for that, not the least of which was the climate, which prevented much of the pleasurable social activities. Even the murder of Julius Caesar did not take place until after the Ides of March. I wonder if there were even over toga coats? Aside from that, we all have our own opinion about what is "too" cold.

Even though in some things, the more things change the more they stay the same, in the case of modern mid-winter months, a definition of "dead time" could easily be "a good time for murder."

This is true in Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason. On a bitter cold January day a 10-year-old boy is found dead and frozen to the ground not far from the schoolyard where he spent his days, and not far from the apartment he called home. He was the second son of a Thai woman, who had come from her native land in marriage to a local man in Reykjavik, Iceland. The boy was a happy child, for the most part, who did well in school, made friends easily, and whose life should not have ended in a pool of blood.

Immigrants to Iceland were becoming more numerous––as they are in many parts of the world where there are available jobs. Similarly, in Iceland the natives of the country have mixed feeling about the influx of foreign languages and cultures. Could this crime be racially motivated? This is the question asked again and again without much result. If not, how else could this death be explained?

Detective Erlendur and his team have to scratch the surface of a seemingly polite society to see what is not so obvious. Meanwhile, dealing with this death of a young boy, a second son, reminds Erlendur of the death of his own brother as a child, lost in a blizzard, for which he still has not forgiven himself. This haunts him throughout the case, as it also keeps reminding him of all his relationship failures.

This mystery is billed as a thriller, but I found the pace and the police-procedural aspect of the unveiling of the facts to be slow and steady. The story is sensitively done and a very nice glimpse of the realities of life in Iceland.

Meanwhile, things are no different in the current-day Italy. Marshall Browne tells the tale of The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders.

Inspector D. P. Anders had been retired from the Rome police for several years when he is asked him to return to the force to help clear up some cold cases. He was a decorated national hero who had been instrumental in bringing down an anarchist group 10 years before. It was during this effort that he lost his leg––as well as his desire to be a policeman.

Now Inspector Anders is being sent from the ministry in Rome to a southern city (unnamed in the book) because a few months before, the Ministry's agent, Investigating Magistrate Fabri, and his two bodyguards were blown to pieces while sitting in a piazza café. Fabri had been sent to investigate the assassination of Judge de Angelis, who was presiding over a case of local corruption that involved many powerful local people.

The Commissioner of Police in this southern city cannot understand why he is being sent an aging policeman of no particular rank and who, additionally, is disabled. Anders himself is not sure why he was chosen for this commission. But, locally, the ripples are already being felt and almost immediately another undercover cop from Rome is killed.

These recent deaths of public figures in the city are ascribed to anarchists. This is the story that the powers that be have agreed upon. Anders is well aware of the fact that most, if not all, of the groups of anarchists that had Italy terrorized at one time were either disbanded or are deep underground. He knows that the real people involved in these crimes are involved with a different criminal society, one that has been the power behind the scenes for decades in southern cities. The governing principle keeping the criminals in charge of the city is fear. Everyone who dares to stand up for the ideal of a free society places his own life, as well of those of his family, at risk. The methods used in the murders of anyone who would rock the boat are brutal and sadistic. The populace knows that even an innocent gesture or look may bring down danger.

What Anders is beginning to suspect is that this may be a case of dishonor among thieves. Things that don't add up one way make sense if there is a renegade faction in the Mafia who are bringing more attention on themselves by some of these deaths. But, in any case, can one man––or even groups of people together––fight such insidious, widespread and deeply-entrenched corruption?

The detective questions if truth and justice can ever be stronger than the Mafia and the politicians and bureaucrats in their pockets. In this excellent novel by Marshall Browne, you will find a beautiful recounting of the classic paradox of the irresistible force meeting an immovable object. One realizes that if there is such a thing as an immovable object, there cannot be an unstoppable force. Both cannot be true at once. In this particular story, one is given hope that evil cannot triumph forever; there will be forces of good that will win the day. Browne tells the tale with a rapid pace, the suspense building to the point that you are gripping the book with both hands. Everything that happens has such a feeling of reality that my sense of disbelief was completely shut down. There is an intense feeling of the despair for the characters in this city, but where there is life there is hope.

Browne is a native Australian, but he has convinced me he has an Italian soul. His series of three Inspector Anders books is very short, but this debut was fantastic.

There is something about this time of year that brings many of us to the brink of hibernation; our own personal dead times. It is a great time for reading, though. Still, I am amazed by those hardy individuals who thrive in the dead of January.

To Eat or Not To Eat

Traditionally, Lent is a time of fasting and repentance that is commonly practiced by giving up a favorite food or habit. When I think of this behavior, I always have the image in my mind of the mayor of the little French town in which Vianne Rocher opened a chocolate shop just across from the church during the weeks before Easter in the movie Chocolat. In my mind's eye I can see the suffering man eating his measly dinner, then finally caving in and almost drowning himself in chocolate in the store window. Giving up a little food would be a good thing for me in many ways, and if I did this incredible thing I would also have to avoid reading books about delicious cooking.

The Cooking School Murders and The Baked Bean Supper Murders by Virginia Rich were the first books I remember reading with recipes in the back. This was back in the early 1980s. A decade later I found Tamar Myers's Pennsylvania Dutch series that featured Magdalena Yoder, the owner of a Mennonite inn in Hernia, Pennsylvania. She made me laugh when she said that she came from a family with so much intermarriage that she was probably her own aunt, niece or cousin and could have a family picnic if she went outside to eat all by herself. I did try one or two of the recipes that Myers included in her early books, but they all failed dismally. The one I wanted to succeed most was a form of chocolate pie.

Spaghetti in Ink

It is always intriguing to read about the food my favorite protagonists eat and some of it would be perfect Lenten fare because I would have no trouble passing it up. Andrea Camilleri's Salvo Montalbano loves his seafood but I would give his pasta with squid ink a pass. He always names his dinners in Italian which I always look up, sometimes to my dismay.

On the other hand, Arnaldur Indridason's Erlendur Sveinsson loves his boiled sheep's head, which I initially took for a cauliflower dish, but the real thing is quite popular in Iceland. Yes, put that on my menu for Lent.

Gerald Samper, in the book Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson, declares that a good dish must remind us that the world is an unexpected place full of unfamiliar challenges. Some of his recipes include kidneys in toffee, lychees on toast with peanut butter and hard cheese, and any animal or other creature you might see in your back yard skinned and eaten with a mixture of a variety of fruits and veggies, some of which should be getting old and possibly maggot-ridden. For the extra flavor and protein, you know. These recipes would put me on a starvation diet and it would be so great for my body and soul.

The most curious cuisine that I have come across in my reading was in the book Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong. I knew that food is an important aspect of Chinese life, but what I learned in this novel was that sometimes people ate certain foods to produce certain moods and to reinforce the power in their life.

Mandarin Dress

In this story, a young woman has been found on the safety island in the middle of a busy Shanghai road. She was wearing a red mandarin dress made a few decades past. Police Inspector Chen Cao is engaged on a case of real estate corruption and, at the same time, he is trying to pursue his literature studies. The case is turned over to Detective Yu Guangming, who is Chen’s partner. Everybody is startled when a second young woman is found dumped and displayed in a similar fashion. A serial killer is the first one of his kind in Shanghai, and the public is stirred by the loss of two women in their flowering age. Chen must put his mind back on the job at hand, and a friend arranges a meal at a special restaurant that he will share with several successful men.

This unusual dinner that Chen Cao was invited to in order get him on the right path was a cruel food experience. This was a multi-course meal that took several hours. The menu included fried sparrow tongues followed by live caged monkey brains. The diners apparently enjoy the live brain fresh and bloody. The live caged monkey with shaven head was brought to the table. There was also live shrimp in wine. In this dish the shrimp become intoxicated as they swim in the wine. They are fried alive at the table and they hop about on the skillet. There are a few more dishes in this vein, but these few choices are also enough to put us off food for a while.

Drunken Shrimp

This is the best of the Inspector Chen series so far in my reading of the series. Chen's approach to solving this case has less to do with forensics and more with history. This version of traditional Chinese dress that originated in the mid 1600s was created in the 1920s, restyled from the original baggy outfit for courtesans and celebrities.

For those of you who have chosen to give up a favorite thing for Lent, I hope it wasn't reading. Whatever you are denying yourself, hang in there. Before you know it, the 40 days of penance will be over and menus can return to comfort food and satiety.

Holiday Traditions

Even though the world is felt to be getting smaller all the time, it still can be said that variety is the spice of life. I always enjoy reading mysteries that take place in December while December is swirling all about me. Many countries and cultures celebrate similar events and holidays in a variety of ways, with customs and ancient rites that have settled in over time. I thought I might compare the rituals of December as seen in the four corners of the world–– where murder is always in season.

Shiroyama

Rei Shimura is a Japanese-American who has been living in Japan for several years. When she is introduced in The Salaryman’s Wife, by Sujata Massey, she is on her way to the Japanese Alps, having worked for two years to save the money for this holiday trip. She is going to a 200-year-old castle town, looking for antiques and a break from her dull gray life in North Tokyo. This is the time that all of Japan is celebrating New Year’s, the biggest party week in the year, but Rei wanted to escape all that and she heads into an adventure that will change her life. There is a Japanese belief that there are no coincidences; that everything is part of a cosmic plan, so before she even gets to Shiroyama she meets the main players who set in motion the events that are to determine her destiny.

Although Rei is part American, she celebrates the holidays Japanese style. Christmas is not celebrated, nor is there giving of gifts. New Year’s is family time in Japan. You spend time with the people you are close to and dine on New Year’s lucky foods, which are symbolic. Long noodles celebrate the changing of the year, vegetables and fruits represent harvest, and roe symbolizes fertility.

Far to the south in the Pacific Ocean, there lies Australia and a different approach to Christmas. In Kerry Greenwood’s Forbidden Fruit, Melbourne baker Corinna Chapman detests Christmas. There are frantic shoppers everywhere and the heat is oppressive at this time of year. Corinna gave up her job in the city for a chance to be her own boss. The hours are long and hard but she works with people she and the readers enjoy quite a bit. There are two wannabe near-anorexic actors; an ex-junkie master muffin maker and a handsome ex-Israeli commando filling out the cast of characters.

Christmas Cake

All this normalcy and carol singing are hiding a sinister religious cult with a subversive agenda, and a vengeful vegan cult with a mission. The story includes two teenage runaways, one of whom is large with child. Her time is near and we don’t know what mode of transportation she is using. It does not appear to be a donkey, although there is one in the story.

Damper

Behind all the mystery solving there is the theme of baking for the holidays, which is described in mouth-watering detail. One can almost smell the aromas coming from Chapman’s Bakery, aptly named Earthly Delights. Traditional Australian Christmas foods include Christmas cake with small treats baked inside. There is also a Christmas damper (a scone-like bread), shaped into a star or wreath and served with butter jam or honey, which originated in the Outback.

Christmas Day in Iceland

It is also the food that I recall in the most detail after reading Arnaldur Indridason’s Voices, which takes place at this time of year. Christmas in Iceland––which is in close proximity to Santa’s home––has many interesting traditions, one of which is that there are 13 Icelandic Santas, each of whom has his own mythology. Iceland's winter holiday goes from early December to January 6, which makes a season of 26 days. Some of the traditions are quite similar to European and North American celebrations and include gift giving on December 24. On New Year’s Eve, there are community bonfires and widespread fireworks.

Inspector Erlendur is another character who feels great personal apathy at this time of the year, but professionally is aggressively investigating the murder of a part-time department-store Santa. There are many themes in this book, but the main one is giving a voice to the victim of murder, a voice for a badly beaten boy whose mother is mentally ill, and finally a voice for his own feelings of despair. This story is one of Indridason’s best.

But as I said I was taken by the food––or I could say taken aback. Inspector Erlendur checks out a room in which a holiday party had taken place. He found the remains of a boiled sheep’s head that the guests had been enjoying. At first I assumed this was possibly a euphemism for something like a head of cauliflower, but was amazed to find it is a usual dish in Iceland and there are even drive-in restaurants where this boiled sheep’s head, which is exactly that, is served with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I will stick with a quarter pounder, thank you.

Christmas in Rio

Another detective close to my heart is the lonely Inspector Espinosa in Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s December Heat. For him, Christmas is pretty much another day in Rio de Janeiro and he spends the days leading up to it trying to solve the murder of a prostitute who was the girlfriend of a retired policeman friend of Espinosa’s. The case is complicated by the faulty memory of this old cop, Vieira. Vieira is an alcoholic who wakes up next to his murdered mistress and finds himself in a peck of trouble. Espinosa knows that open-and-shut cases are never straightforward. Inspector Espinosa will probably spend both Christmas and New Year's reading his books and looking for more to add to his collection. He might eat the traditional pork loin and farofa, which is raw manioc flour, roasted with butter, salt and bacon. On New Year’s Day Brazilians eat lentils to increase their good luck.

A bowl of black-eyed peas on January first is essential for good luck, health and good fortune in my neck of the woods. I tend to cast my fate to the winds and leave this tradition to others in the family who wouldn’t miss this lucky charm for anything.

I would be interested in any holiday traditions that you readers feel are essential to help circumvent bad luck.